NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth after 9
months stuck in space
[March 19, 2025]
By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Stuck in space no more, NASA astronauts
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday, hitching a
different ride home to close out a saga that began with a bungled test
flight more than nine months ago.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico in the early
evening, just hours after departing the International Space Station.
Splashdown occurred off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida
Panhandle, bringing their unplanned odyssey to an end.
Within an hour, the astronauts were out of their capsule, waving and
smiling at the cameras while being hustled away in reclining stretchers
for routine medical checks.
It all started with a flawed Boeing test flight last spring.
The two expected to be gone just a week or so after launching on
Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on June 5. So many problems cropped
up on the way to the space station that NASA eventually sent Starliner
back empty and transferred the test pilots to SpaceX, pushing their
homecoming into February. Then SpaceX capsule issues added another
month’s delay.
Sunday’s arrival of their relief crew meant Wilmore and Williams could
finally leave. NASA cut them loose a little early, given the iffy
weather forecast later this week. They checked out with NASA’s Nick
Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov, who arrived in their own SpaceX
capsule last fall with two empty seats reserved for the Starliner duo.
Wilmore and Williams ended up spending 286 days in space — 278 days
longer than anticipated when they launched. They circled Earth 4,576
times and traveled 121 million miles (195 million kilometers) by the
time of splashdown.
“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome home,” radioed SpaceX Mission Control in
California.
“What a ride,” replied Hague, the capsule’s commander. "I see a capsule
full of grins ear to ear.”
Dolphins circled the capsule as divers readied it for hoisting onto the
recovery ship. Once safely on board, the side hatch was opened and the
astronauts were helped out, one by one. Williams was next-to-last out,
followed by Wilmore who gave two gloved thumbs-up.
Wilmore and Williams' plight captured the world’s attention, giving new
meaning to the phrase “stuck at work" and turning “Butch and Suni” into
household names. While other astronauts had logged longer spaceflights
over the decades, none had to deal with so much uncertainty or see the
length of their mission expand by so much.
Wilmore and Williams quickly transitioned from guests to full-fledged
station crew members, conducting experiments, fixing equipment and even
spacewalking together. With 62 hours over nine spacewalks, Williams set
a record: the most time spent spacewalking over a career among female
astronauts.
Both had lived on the orbiting lab before and knew the ropes, and
brushed up on their station training before rocketing away. Williams
became the station's commander three months into their stay and held the
post until earlier this month.
Their mission took an unexpected twist in late January when President
Donald Trump asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to accelerate the
astronauts’ return and blamed the delay on the Biden administration. The
replacement crew’s brand new SpaceX capsule still wasn’t ready to fly,
so SpaceX subbed it with a used one, hurrying things along by at least a
few weeks.
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From left, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov,
and NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Suni Williams sit inside a SpaceX
capsule onboard the SpaceX recovery ship Megan after landing in the
water off the coast of Florida, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (Keegan
Barber/NASA via AP)
After splashdown, Musk offered his congratulations via X. NASA's Joel
Montalbano said the space agency was already looking at various options
when Trump made his call to hurry the astronauts home.
Even in the middle of the political storm, Wilmore and Williams
continued to maintain an even keel at public appearances from orbit,
casting no blame and insisting they supported NASA’s decisions from the
start.
NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing after the shuttle program ended, in order
to have two competing U.S. companies for transporting astronauts to and
from the space station until it's abandoned in 2030 and steered to a
fiery reentry. By then, it will have been up there more than three
decades; the plan is to replace it with privately run stations so NASA
can focus on moon and Mars expeditions.
“This has been nine months in the making, and I couldn’t be prouder of
our team’s versatility, our team’s ability to adapt and really build for
the future of human spaceflight,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager
Steve Stich said.
With Starliner still under engineering investigation, SpaceX will launch
the next crew for NASA as soon as July. Stich said NASA will have until
summer to decide whether the crew after that one will be flown by SpaceX
or Boeing — or whether Boeing will have to prove itself by flying cargo
before people again.
Both retired Navy captains, Wilmore and Williams stressed they didn’t
mind spending more time in space — a prolonged deployment reminiscent of
their military days. But they acknowledged it was tough on their
families.
Wilmore, 62, missed most of his younger daughter’s senior year of high
school; his older daughter is in college. Williams, 59, had to settle
for internet calls from space to her husband, mother and other
relatives.
“We have not been worried about her because she has been in good
spirits,” said Falguni Pandya, who is married to Williams’ cousin. “She
was definitely ready to come home.”
Prayers for Williams and Wilmore were offered up at 21 Hindu temples in
the U.S. in the months leading up to their return, said organizer Tejal
Shah, president of World Hindu Council of America. Williams has spoken
frequently about her Indian and Slovenian heritage. Prayers for their
safe return also came from Wilmore’s Baptist church in Houston, where he
serves as an elder.
Crowds in Jhulasan, the ancestral home of Williams' father, danced and
celebrated in a temple and performed rituals during the homecoming.
After returning in the gulf — Trump in January signed an executive order
renaming the body of water Gulf of America — Wilmore and Williams will
have to wait until they’re off the SpaceX recovery ship and flown to
Houston before reuniting with their loved ones. The three NASA
astronauts will be checked out by flight surgeons as they adjust to
gravity, officials said, and should be allowed to go home after a day or
two.
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AP journalist Deepa Bharath contributed to this report.
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